


i say i wanna settle down

by orphan_account



Category: GOT7
Genre: And angsty, Angst, M/M, me being extremely vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8788624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: That's how they grow - into the crevices of their own insecurities, knowing they might come out scarred. This is how they grow - in love.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> two songs and two authors inspired me - "training wheels" by melanie martinez and troye sivan's "lost boy" (from where the title comes); as to the authors an excerpt of "norwegian wood" and a poem by richard siken from "crush"; basically a fic about people being afraid of being in love

_ i _

 

You, drowning

                          between my arms —

stay.

You, pushing your body

                         into the river

only to be left

                         with yourself —

stay.

 

\--- Ocean Vuong; "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous"

 


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole piece is anachronic hence the numbers above each part

 

**4.**

 

Jaebum kisses him on the way out. It's sloppy, fast. Jaebum tries to pull away too soon and Jinyoung tries to chase him back home.

 

What's home and where is it?

 

Jinyoung does not ask. Jaebum would have said something like ‘ _ I don't know, not here’ _ anyway. He would have meant it as a joke, a lie, but let’s not forget there’s truth in everything. That’s how you fake it. That’s how Jaebum’s faked it for a while.

 

Jaebum's hair is styled, pulled backwards, his coat straightened out over his shoulders and his jeans rest on his hip bones easily, practiced. Jaebum fits into anything - his clothes, his family, different houses, Jinyoung's life. Jinyoung smiles and he feels the back of his throat raw, bitter, burning, like the taste of alcohol but worse. Jinyoung smooths his palms over Jaebum's arms to feel the warmth that radiates off the other, to feel close to him for a second. More or less, he doesn’t know. Give or take, he doesn’t know. Funny how when he was younger he thought adults knew everything. But now that he’s grown, he knows nothing more, if even less.

 

"I love you," he murmurs breathlessly, as if he had been running, chasing, being chased. By whom, he doesn’t know.

 

Jaebum doesn't say anything back, but it's not like Jinyoung expected much.

  
  
  


**1.**

 

The first time Jaebum had kissed Jinyoung it had gone like this - Jaebum, smiling against his lips, not a real kiss, teeth clashing and laugh rumbling in Jinyoung's chest. Jaebum's hands on his waist, the hard surface of the wall behind him. Jaebum had tasted like mint and blueberries and winter. Jinyoung had licked into his mouth, breathing heavy, heavy, but his heart had been trying to fly out of his chest. And Jinyoung had held Jaebum in his arms, fingers locked behind his neck because  _ don't run away, don't run away, don't run away _ . He hadn't said it out loud but Jaebum seemed to know as he had murmured "Calm down. I'm not going anywhere."

 

Jinyoung still wishes he hadn't let go of Jaebum that night. He wishes he hadn’t let himself be reassured.

 

**3.**

 

This is what they are, after all, stripped of all the layers that cover them, all the ugly layers. Jaebum is a mix of every single color, a kaleidoscope that doesn’t blend. Jaebum that held his hand before the recital, Jaebum that had woken up besides him, with the sun making it's way through the loose strands of black hair, Jaebum that had given Jinyoung his favorite watch. A gift, a reminder. Jinyoung thinks about Jaebum at almost any time of the day and the thought of him makes him happy.

 

Then there's Jinyoung - a picture in monochrome. Even in the brightest of colors, he is still just an undertone of gray. Jinyoung isn’t kind at all; Jinyoung is just selfish.

 

"What have we been doing?" Jaebum mutters against his back, forehead gently pressed to the expanse of Jinyoung’s shoulder blades, and Jinyoung's heart jumps in his throat, not daring to turn around.

 

"Do you regret it?" Jinyoung's voice is shaky, but the question is clear. He wants a clear answer. "Being with me, do you regret it?"

 

Jaebum's voice is rough but steady when he answers and Jinyoung knows he's not lying. "I could never regret you."

 

Jinyoung steadies himself over the countertop, his body quivering . Jinyoung is a whole building, with all the nails loose.

 

"That's not the same thing, Jaebum."

 

Jinyoung is selfish so he regrets many things and all of them include Jaebum.

  
  
  
  


**+.**   
  


We could talk in pretty metaphors - they make everything better, they blur out the truth. Jinyoung knows better than anyone else that you can name the pain with synonyms, dress them up, so you seem like a martyr. If you say you hurt then maybe everybody will care enough to leave you to your own devices.

 

But in the end, after all is said and done, Jinyoung thinks that the truth is far more painful, bloody, and awful. Jinyoung just wants to be loved, just wants to be needed.

  
  


**2.**

 

Jaebum buys Jinyoung a drink when they meet. It’s overly sweet and has a name that Jinyoung can’t even pronounce but he throws back four of them before he leads Jaebum by the hand outside, legs carrying him out faster than his mind can stop him. Jinyoung’s a singer and Jaebum is bad at life, bad at finding jobs, bad at making decisions, but Jinyoung likes him anyway. Jinyoung’s a performer, not a famous one, Jaebum is the secretary of some big shot, but only temporary, until he’s fired because he spilled the coffee one too many times. But in that moment, in the dead of the night, none of it matters. The air smells of rain and ash and smoke, and Jinyoung’s hair, lit by the light of streetlamps and the blue shadow of the moon, flutters in the wind, as he turns around, looking behind his back, his lips reveal his teeth. He pretends he doesn’t see the way Jaebum is looking at him, running a few steps behind, as if Jinyoung is the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on. It still makes thunderstorms grow in the shell of his heart, the shaking louder than any.

 

Jinyoung lets Jaebum buy him a meal the next time they meet (after Jinyoung had scribbled down his number in sharpie marker across Jaebum’s forearm) and Jinyoung pays for the movies.

 

Jinyoung lets Jaebum sleep over in his bed, and wonders if he’s let a wolf into his own house.

 

He doesn’t mind.

  
  


**+.**

 

There’s nothing written here.   
  


It’s empty.   
  


It’s a little jarring when you come to that realization, that there are no more words left on the pages to express poignant dialogue and heartfelt words.   
  


But the way all the loose ends thread themselves together into a satisfying conclusion should’ve long since been an indicator of what was to come   
  


It’s too bad you weren’t perceptive enough to know when the story ended, Jinyoung.

  
  


**8.**

 

His friends tell him he doesn't know what he's doing. Mark tells him that as they sit on the tiled floor of his apartment, cleared out from almost all furniture, photographs lined up and scattered all over the ground. He rarely comes back here anymore, sleeping his nights away at his studio. Mark wouldn't understand this part of Jinyoung. Mark, at the very least, has his talent, something to fall back on. Jinyoung only has Jaebum and then he has nothing at all.

"I know what I'm doing," he says, knees pulled close to his chest. He doesn't smile. Mark knows him too well, there's no way Jinyoung would have fooled him.

 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know where to go.

 

So he stays.

But Mark is a good friend, one that understands Jinyoung on a fundamental level, so he pats Jinyoung’s head and makes him a cup of tea, the steam rising. Jinyoung watches it until his vision blurs. He hasn't always been sad, but that's hard to believe nowadays.

Jinyoung spends the longest time staring at the photos framed on the wall - the first one, the one that won Mark third place in a photography competition; the second one - a picture of Jinyoung and Mark, Jinyoung's smile so wide it split his lips and his eyes crinkled at the edges. He lifts the right corner of his mouth now. It doesn't feel natural. He pokes his cheek a few times before he gets up to leave the mug at the sink.

  
  
  


**5.**

 

“You started smoking?” Jaebum’s hands find the railings and Jinyoung feels the need to place his own atop. He knows Jaebum wouldn’t have minded, knows he would have turned his palm and intertwined their fingers and yet, the breath lodged high inside his throat won’t let him.

 

He doesn’t know why he does things like that. Putting his own foot in front of the other in a poorly executed attempt at tripping himself. He’s just masochistic like that.

 

The cigarette dangles at the edge of his lips, and he breathes around it, as he searches his jacket pockets for a lighter. The cold bites at his skin, their balcony at night, Jaebum’s eyes on him. He accepts everything as theirs. Their living room, their home. He lights up the cigarette, then takes a drag. The smoke still feels like swallowing needles. His slender fingers are only slightly shaking as he brings it back to his lips.

 

“Yeah,” he mutters. “Recently.”   
  
“You know that’s, like, super unhealthy.” 

 

“Yeah.” He feels Jaebum’s hand on his forearm, his fingers hot and digging under skin. What Jinyoung can’t do, Jaebum does with ease.

 

“Come on.” Jaebum kisses his temple but it’s fleeting. “I’ll make you some tea. You’ve got vocal training tomorrow.”

 

Jinyoung sighs and his breath rolls off in clouds. His eyes trace the embers of the cigarette before he trashes it against the metal of the railings, easily throwing it from the fourth floor into the darkness. He’s still holding Jaebum’s hand as the warmth of the heater bites at his cheeks.

 

**9.**

 

Jinyoung slides into the wooden chair, resting his elbows on the table and his eyes trace the vine drawings across the wall, stems growing, tangling and untangling. The air smells like tea and Jinyoung tries to keep his mind busy - to guess what they’re serving to the person on his left, to guess when he’ll stop needing things to distract him from thinking. The faint glow of the morning sun is filtered and falls lightly across Jinyoung’s skin. He raises his hands to his face and almost expects the light to follow but it slips right off as if it had never been there. Shadows cover his pale arms and he places them under the light again, soaking in the warmth.

 

“Excuse me?” The waitress is pretty. Her bangs shape the frames of her face, and she licks her lips absentmindedly. Jinyoung tries to guess when her shift started. “Have you decided what your order will be?”

 

Jaebum had always liked it here. Jaebum always liked tea, where Jinyoung preferred coffee; Jaebum always liked the old-fashioned stone paths and the tables out in the sun and Jinyoung never complained. Jinyoung breathes in and his mind leads him to believe that the faint smell of Jaebum’s cologne is still tangible in the air.

 

He places his finger on something from the menu, something he remembers Jaebum liking, and he doesn’t fail to notice the waitress’ confused stare, eyes flickering to the empty chair across Jinyoung.

 

“Are you waiting for somebody?” She motions with her pen, outlining the imaginary borders of a person.

 

Jinyoung’s mouth stretches in a half smile that never reaches his eyes. “No. I don’t think anybody will be coming today.”

 

The waitress doesn’t let surprise flash over her face. She just lowers her head and leaves.

 

Jinyoung’s nails drum against the cigarette box before he opens it and slides one out. He taps it against his fingers, for lack of anything better to do. With the precision of somebody that has been smoking for more than a few months, he lights it up and blinks a few times. The needles in his throat have now subdued to faint nips.

 

**+.**

 

This is where Jinyoung remembers (or maybe finds out for the first time) that from the time you are born, you are loved. At least, he is. His parents love him, his friends love him, some of his teachers love his determination and ability. It’s not an expensive feeling, even if you buy it. And Jinyoung has been loved, doted on, all his life. And Jinyoung has been told ‘you’ll become a heartbreaker one day’ and he doesn’t know if it’s sadder that he really did end up becoming one or that he broke his own heart as well.

 

From the moment he’s born he’s loved and maybe that’s not such a good thing, after all.

 

**6.**

 

Jinyoung doesn’t understand and by now this is all a joke, a story told at the hours of the night when truth blurs its lines and you want to pretend all of this isn’t happening.

 

And that’s what Jaebum tells him, Jinyoung’s legs bumping into his under the too-low coffee table they bought together.  “Let’s break up.”

 

That’s the thing with pain. It numbs you him out before it hits him. It pours into his darkest crevices, like water, and he has to wait until the wave comes.

 

“You couldn’t have been more original.” Jinyoung retrieves his feet so he doesn’t touch Jaebum.

 

Jaebum doesn’t want him, Jaebum doesn’t want him, Jaebum doesn’t want him.

 

“You’re saying that because you’re angry.” Jaebum says and his eyes look at Jinyoung but straight through him.

 

Jaebum has always been a person that Jinyoung could understand. Not really due to Jaebum’s own expressiveness but more due to the fact that Jinyoung is simply too good at reading people. It was something that infuriated Jaebum in the beginning, but he learned how to love it along with all the other little quirks that Jinyoung had. Has. Does he love it now, still? Jinyoung doesn’t know.

 

“What do you want me to say.” His lungs are tearing open, he feels, and that’s what they are, after all, Jinyoung thinks. They’re not there to help each other. Jaebum was never a straight stand or a crutch for Jinyoung. Jaebum was, and is, an earthquake and what they are is bloody and torn apart and rotten inside out.

 

Of course, though, in love we seek salvation for ourselves. Nobody thinks about their lover.

 

“It’s not-”

 

“Save it.” Save it, save it, save it. “I don’t want to hear any of it.”

 

**minus 7.**

 

Sometimes people have to be told things to realize them, no matter how many hints are given, no matter the fact that you feel it on your tongue but it never becomes something you can say. Sometimes it’s on the tip of your tongue, sometimes you can almost feel it.

 

Take us, this, for example. You and I are standing on the balcony of your place, just a few blocks away from the bar I used to perform in. Here we are, I’m an actor and you’re the producer of this goddamn drama, describing it like that for lack of better words. I haven’t seen anything but the left side of your face for a whole hour because you refuse to look me in the eyes. The sun is setting behind you and I can only see the bits that you don’t hide. I’m eating something but every time I swallow down a bite I forget what I’m eating. Everything tastes like cardboard and you’re not speaking.

 

This is how we introduce ourselves, this is an opening scene. This is the setting, there’s the light.

 

“I love you.” You say. You blink and the couplet moles over your eye follow your motions.

 

I know you love me. That’s the problem.

 

“Yeah. But you’re going to leave me.” The fork clinks against the plate and I have never heard a louder sound. “Because you aren’t ready just yet. You love me but you’re a coward that’s just not ready.”

 

This is what I mean. Right now you don’t know what I know. Right now as I tell you this you’re ready to deny it, ready to tell me that it just wasn’t working out. But between the two of us, I’ve always been the smarter one. And I know you’re going to go home and you’re going to be sad and angry but you’re going to think about my words. You’re going to think about my words so much you forget how my voice sounds because it will fade into white noise and you’ll tear yourself apart. And I know you’re running away. That’s why you loved me as much as you did. Because I could tell you what to do when you couldn’t do that yourself.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**10.**

 

Jaebum’s eyes water over Jinyoung’s picture that he’s been too afraid to remove as a wallpaper on his phone. In days like these Jinyoung feels like a hallucination and Jaebum’s insides twist and turn until he can barely breathe, until he can’t swallow food and he feels his skin tightening, scretching over his bones like sandpaper. There’s always been something scary about Jinyoung. Maybe that isn’t the right word to explain it but it’s the closest he can get and he’s never really been good at all the talking. Jinyoung was always better than him.

 

There’s something frightening about Jinyoung’s eyes, so warm, so deep, so gentle, as if he could see straight through him every time he looked at him. There was, is, something so scary about how Jinyoung kissed him (it still hurts to think in past tense. kissed him. will never kiss him again). Like Jaebum was water in the cage of Jinyoung’s fingers - Jinyoung, giving him just enough space to breathe, Jinyoung, not giving him a chance to escape.

 

It’s months later and he still hasn’t been able to stop dreaming of Jinyoung’s soft hands clutching Jaebum’s forearm. He wakes up in cold sweat and his sobs shake the sadness out of him.

 

**11** .

 

All pretty things end somehow and Jinyoung was never stupid enough to think this wouldn’t. That’s what counts, is what Jaebum said. What counts is that we’re here now and you love me and I love you, and don’t think about all the unnecessary stuff. That’s what Jaebum said. Jaebum always said that Jinyoung is a pessimist that didn’t believe love lasts and a pessimist that, even before a relationship had begun, had already played its ending out in several different ways.

 

All pretty things end somehow and this just happens to end a little more painful than others.

 

Jaebum moves half across the country to where his mother is, Jaebum changes his phone number altogether. Jinyoung gets drunk off his face and hopes he becomes color blind as soon as possible.

 

Wounds heal, bones break no more. Jinyoung wonders why is it that it still hurts so much.

 

**ad infinitum.**

 

When they meet again Jinyoung recognizes Jaebum the moment he sees him. There is something different though, different from how Jinyoung remembers him. In his memory Jaebum’s eyes are always lined with dark circles and his body is skin on bones and nothing else. But now, as his eyes trail over Jaebum’s frame, he sees the difference. The sharp edge to his cheeks has disappeared, his eyes the same deep dark but more alive. There is a kind of gentle beauty that Jaebum has acquired and there is a want in the pit of Jinyoung’s stomach, something he thought he had forgotten. Something he wouldn’t have again.

 

Jaebum catches his eyes across the room and raises his flute, champagne swaying in the glass. He turns back to the girl he's talking to and his smile never falls or changes.

 

Jinyoung feels sick, his insides thrashing about. Jaebum looks so unaffected. Jinyoung remembers the first time they met, Jinyoung remembers the color of Jaebum's hair, Jinyoung remembers soft hands and wanton moans and nights where Jaebum slept with his back turned so he does not face him. Jinyoung remembers it all. It all comes flooding back, like it's always been there. In the end Jinyoung never managed to forget.

 

He needs to clear his head.

 

The cigarettes taste better with every next one and he smokes three before he hears the door to the balcony opening. He tries not to turn around. Maybe it's his own twisted over-consciousness, maybe it's his own fantasy, his own desire for it to be true but he thinks that the steps sound awfully much like Jaebum's. That's a ridiculous thought, of course, because a year ago Jaebum had never taken a step that sounded odd to Jinyoung's ears. The blurred silhouette focuses in his peripheral vision and Jinyoung averts his eyes, feeling as exposed as ever.

 

"Still haven't given that up, have you?" Jaebum's voice sounds rich, smooth, sweet, like sugar melted down and simmering. There's something right under the surface of his tone, trying to break out, just barely bubbling. Jinyoung's chest sparks in curiosity, sparks in pain.

 

Jinyoung doesn't answer. "You look good."

 

You look good even without me.

 

"You also look good." Jinyoung startles, shocked, looking at Jaebum. The warmth in Jaebum's eyes feels foreign, something out of a dream, and all too painful. The weight of it glues Jinyoung to his feet. "Really. But you’ve always looked good anyway."

 

It's funny, how after all this time, Jaebum still knows Jinyoung better than Jinyoung does himself. Still knows which buttons to push to make him do whatever he wants.

 

"Miss me?" Jaebum says. Jinyoung lights up another cigarette but can't remember to bring it to his lips.

 

"Missed you." It's true. He's missed Jaebum so terribly, so tenderly, so rawly. His stomach hurts remembering how Mark had tried to get him to go out, to get him to  _ eat _ .

 

"Good." Jaebum's fingers catch Jinyoung's wrist. "I missed you too."

 

Jinyoung feels shivers spark at the tail of his spine. It's warm, even in the chill of November.

  
"You ready?" Jaebum says and Jinyoung's lit cigarette plunges into darkness as Jaebum pulls on his wrist. "Come on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two people mainly got me through this fic: april and chen (who even wrote a plus part) - bless their souls for their patience; hope you enjoyed!


End file.
